Run Gulp tasks during composer install - php

Question

I'm deploying a PHP app to Heroku using Composer. Currently I'm using Gulp to compress CSS/JS and commit it to the Git repository. I was wondering if it makes more sense to run the Gulp tasks using Composer's post-install-cmd. What is the best practice for that?

Answer 1

You use the so-called "multi-buildpack" to perform both a Node.js (to install Gulp) and PHP build upon deploy.
Here's an example I built a while ago that uses Bower to install Bootstrap in a Composer post-install-cmd, but the principle is going to be the same:
http://heroku-multipack-nodejs-php-ex.herokuapp.com
Sources with README that explains the process: https://github.com/dzuelke/heroku-multipack-nodejs-php-example
You can also use the composer compile step if you prefer the Gulp install not to run on each composer install: https://devcenter.heroku.com/articles/php-support#custom-compile-step

Answer 2

Think of Gulp as an all-purpose task-runner, rather than using Composer's post-install-cmd (or similar) to bolt on additional tasks. A PHP package manager shouldn't be responsible for fetching or compressing front-end assets, that's not its job. Gulp isn't just for front-end-related tasks.
To me, using gulp-composer makes the most sense.

Answer 3

gulp provides flexible tools for command tasks, so perhaps, the best practice is to use gulp for update or install composer dependencies?
Take a look at this gulp-composer package
Example:
composer = require('gulp-composer');
gulp.task('composer', function () {
composer({ cwd: './php-stuff', bin: 'composer' });
});

Answer 4

I'd recommend using Symfony's Process Component for that inside some script handler and then run that as post-install-cmd as you said.
scripts/composer/ScriptHandler.php
use Composer\Script\Event;
use Symfony\Component\Process\Process;
use Symfony\Component\Process\Exception\ProcessFailedException;
class ScriptHandler {
public static function gulpBuild(Event $event) {
$process = new Process('cd /path/to/my/theme && gulp build');
$process->run();
// executes after the command finishes
if (!$process->isSuccessful()) {
throw new ProcessFailedException($process);
$event->getIO()->write($process->getOutput());
}
else {
$event->getIO()->write("Recompiled and compressed CSS/JS");
}
}
}
composer.json
"autoload": {
"classmap": [
"scripts/composer/ScriptHandler.php"
]
},
"scripts": {
"post-update-cmd": [
"DrupalProject\\composer\\ScriptHandler::gulpBuild"
]
},
Check Composer template for Drupal projects for some more inspiration. (For example getting the path to your theme dynamically to have that command run successfully in every environment.)